Los Angeles Times - May 9, 2008
Forget selling land to balance L.A.'s budget, city is giving it away
The council is set to vote on a proposal to give a three-acre site
in North Hollywood to a developer building offices and a movie theater
near the Red Line station.
By David Zahniser and Steve Hymon
ven
as Los Angeles officials search for surplus public property that can be sold
to help balance this year's budget, the City Council is weighing a plan to
give a three-acre site in North Hollywood to a developer who has promised to
build an office tower and a seven-screen Laemmle movie theater.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's proposed budget
for fiscal 2008-09 calls for raising $14.2 million by selling excess real
estate holdings, among them an old animal shelter in San Pedro, three vacant
fire stations and the old Cypress Park library.
Yet Villaraigosa's appointees at the
Community Redevelopment Agency are also recommending that the council hand
over a site that the agency has valued at $14.9 million to the J.H. Snyder
Co., whose projects include the West Hollywood Gateway retail center and the
Crescent apartments in Beverly Hills. The firm's president has contributed
$160,000 to the mayor's political and philanthropic causes.
The plan is scheduled for a council vote
today. Councilman Tom LaBonge, whose district includes North Hollywood, said
he supported the Laemmle project but relied on the redevelopment agency to
craft the contract points.
"I don't negotiate these deals. I leave it
up to the agency," he said. "But I do know this: North Hollywood went
nowhere until [J.H. Snyder] got involved."
The proposal drew fire from one longtime
critic of the strategy of subsidizing private development and of dense
projects. Urban historian Joel Kotkin questioned whether the east San
Fernando Valley needs more movie theaters.
"I don't understand it. We're giving away
property when we're supposed to be selling it," said Kotkin, author of "The
City: A Global History". "You'd think that the budget crisis would make
people think twice about this."
The redevelopment proposal represents the
final phase of NoHo Commons, a multiyear effort to revitalize North
Hollywood's arts district. The first phase allowed 438 apartments and
condominiums to be built and the second brought a Hows supermarket. Both are
next to the Metro Red Line station.
Redevelopment agency officials said they
offered the site to J.H. Snyder for $1 after the developer agreed to donate
500 square feet of it for a job center and spend $3.25 million to expand a
nearby medical clinic and $1.5 million to build a child-care facility at
nearby Valley College.
The company also agreed to relocate and
refurbish Phil's Diner, a historic restaurant that has been shuttered.
NoHo Commons III is the third phase of a
redevelopment project that began in 2000 and has relied on at least $46.3
million in city revenue.
The third phase would include a nine-story
office tower with retail on the ground floor, the movie theater and a
700-space parking garage. The project is at Lankershim Boulevard and
Weddington Street, one block south of the subway station.
"It's something the community is looking
forward to," said Gazala Pirzada, a project manager with the redevelopment
agency. "There is a need for a theater in the area, so we feel that this
project is really providing a lot of different kinds of community benefits."
J.H. Snyder gave $50,000 to each of three
Villaraigosa's initiatives: the push for a bill allowing him to take over
the Los Angeles Unified School District, the campaign to elect three new
school board members and the successful campaign on behalf of Proposition S,
a $243-million telephone users tax on the Feb. 5 ballot. The company also
donated $10,000 to Villaraigosa's inaugural gala, a fundraiser for
after-school programs.
Cliff Goldstein, a senior partner with the
company, said that he did not believe the land was worth $14.9 million --
and that he was unfamiliar with such an appraisal. Goldstein also said that
the company had lent the CRA about $5 million to acquire the land.
"To suggest that it's unencumbered land that
the CRA owns and can be sold is misleading," Goldstein said. "We purchased
it at market rate . . . We're getting part of the land back to build an
office building, we're giving some of the land back for parking and to build
the movie theater."
Redevelopment officials said some of the
concessions were negotiated by the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a
nonprofit group that seeks to obtain money from developers for
neighborhood-level and union-backed initiatives. The group is headed by
Madeline Janis, one of Villaraigosa's appointees on the redevelopment agency
board.
Janis abstained from the vote but her
colleagues approved the deal with J.H. Snyder on March 20. Although the
complicated financing package still requires the approval of the Los Angeles
City Council, Villaraigosa went ahead with a groundbreaking four days later,
appearing with LaBonge and Jerome Snyder.
"This project will bring affordable housing,
jobs, mass transit and an array of community services to a part of the
Valley which has been starving for investment for decades," said Matt Szabo,
a spokesman for the mayor. "That is precisely the kind of progress that
public incentives are intended to achieve."
Szabo also said that there was no connection
between contributions to the mayor made by Snyder and the actions of the
redevelopment agency board.
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